For many of such errors/misunderstandings/etc., there's tons of examples, rivalling the number of the Eskimo words for 'snow', for which, like eggcorns or snowclones, you'll enjoy searching www.languagelog.com.

really? I was laboring under the assumption that duct tape was designed to tape up ductwork, but hey, I guess I'm wrong apparently it is to further handicap the ducks one shoots in the barrel; can you say whack-a-molé?
My understanding is that duck tape was made from duck cloth, not the same as Duct tape with super adhesive. Duck tape did indeed come first.

mark
under the heading just de fax m'am, jes de fax:

"Duck tape" is a trademark of Henkel Consumer Adhesives, dating from 1982, who sell it under that name in several countries. John Kahl, the CEO of the firm, has been reported as saying that his father chose the name after noticing that "duct tape" sounded like "duck tape" when customers asked for it. (The collision of the two "t"s in the middle of "duct tape" causes the first one to be lost by a process called elision.) The term "duct tape" has never been trademarked, though several compound terms that include it have - it looks as though it had become generic before anybody thought of registering it. Apart from a one-off instance in the Oxford English Dictionary of "duck tape" from 1971 (which looks like a case of the "duct" - "duck" elision), I can't find "duck tape" in the adhesive sense until the 1980s.

My view is that the original name was "duct tape", given informally to it by heating engineers post-war, and the "duck tape" version is elision in rapid speech, later capitalised on by a manufacturer. But, as things stand, nobody knows for sure

I took glassblowing (from tanks of molten glass under a 2400° gas flame, kids, not those little fish and pianos you find at midways) where we recycled clear glass Miller bottles. Although they were hard to come by on campus. Yessirree, miiiiighty hard to come by... but I digress...

One day we found that a brand spanking new fire marshall had made a guerrilla (gorilla?) raid overnight and shut us down. Literally. Just pulled the plugs and locked the door--an incredibly unsafe move on his part. His written report explained that he didn't like our overhead ducks. Not just one duck, mind you. Every duck in the flocking report. Skeptic that I am, I wondered aloud whether he had ever opened a single textbook, and how he had passed the tests I'd like to think he was administered before being sprung on an unsuspecting world.

If only we'd been thinking ahead! A few strategically-placed rolls of Duck Tape might have thrown him off our tail.

-gailr

Last edited by gailr on Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We locals, lived there a long time, not a native, reply, "Bang-her!? I didn't even know her!"

It is pronounced, Bang-Gor... no I don't know where the extra "G" comes from, but I have found it is best to pronounce thing the way the locals do. When Kennedy was in Berlin and declared himself a pastry, he endeared himself. However, this rarely happens with locals.

Eric

Last edited by eberntson on Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

eberntson wrote:When Kennedy was in Berlin and declared himself a pastry, he endeared himself.

"I'm a jelly donut", says the tale, though according to this website it's not true anyway.

Not that I'm a big Kennedy fan (nor was, even back in the day), but truth will out. Irregardless and notwithstanding: einmal Berliner, immer Berliner.

-- PW

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"